Structuring critical success factors of airline safety management system using a hybrid model

With the global trend of legal requirement for a performance-based Safety Management System (SMS), to develop and implement an SMS to deliver services has become the most important goal within the airline industry. Yet there found some discrepancies concerning the use and the manner that SMS was being explained and taught. Therefore, this research aims to develop a quantitative evaluation model, which identifies the key components of airline SMS and considers the interaction between key components. To explore the core value of SMS, an extensive review regarding SMS components are firstly conducted and summarized from major aviation organizations and authorities, and then Grey Relational Analysis is used to group and select key components. After the critical components are derived, Decision Making Trial Evaluation Laboratory and Analytic Network Process are employed to analyze and map out all kinds of interactions among critical components and dimensions systematically. An empirical study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed methods. From the results of the combined approaches, Organization is the most important dimension in SMS, which begins with Policies that convey to all staff the top managers’ vision on safety.